AI Daily Brief — 31 December 2025
Final day of 2025. TechCrunch VC consensus: “AI is coming for labor in 2026” — year-end survey where labor displacement surfaced unprompted as dominant concern. Cites Nov 2025 MIT study estimating 11.7% of jobs already automatable with AI. Battery Ventures’ Jason Mendel: “2026 will be the year of agents as software expands from making humans more productive to automating work itself.” Sapphire’s Rajeev Dham: 2026 budgets will shift resources from labor to AI. AI Insider publishes 2025 Robotics Funding Year in Review: Figure AI surpassed $1B in Series C at $39B post-money; UBTech Robotics secured $1B credit line from Infini Capital for Middle East “super factory”; FieldAI raised $405M across 2 oversubscribed rounds (Bezos Expeditions + NVIDIA NVentures + Khosla + Temasek); Unitree Series C valued company above ~$1.4B with backing from Tencent + Alibaba + Ant Group + Geely. NVIDIA closes 2025 at $186.50, up 37.2% on the year — capping year that included late-December $20B Groq inference-tech licensing deal (Dec 24, structured as license + team hire of CEO Jonathan Ross + president Sunny Madra rather than outright acquisition) — NVIDIA’s largest-ever transaction surpassing 2019 Mellanox deal. Al Jazeera “A-Z list of 2025’s biggest stories” — AI prominently featured among year’s defining stories: AI jump from novelty to infrastructure; global ChatGPT user-base climb from 40% to 61% adoption; projected $375B annual AI spend by end of 2025 swelling toward $3T/yr by 2030.
Top stories
- TechCrunch: “Investors predict AI is coming for labor in 2026”. MIT: 11.7% jobs automatable. Battery Ventures Mendel: “2026 year of agents… automating work itself.” Sapphire Dham: budgets shift labor → AI. via TechCrunch
- AI Insider 2025 Robotics Funding Year in Review. Figure $1B Series C $39B; UBTech $1B Infini Capital credit; FieldAI $405M (Bezos + NVentures + Khosla + Temasek); Unitree Series C ~$1.4B (Tencent + Alibaba + Ant + Geely). via AI Insider
- NVDA closes 2025 at $186.50 (+37.2% YoY). Capped year with $20B Groq inference-tech license (Dec 24) — NVIDIA’s largest-ever transaction surpassing 2019 Mellanox deal. via CNBC
- Al Jazeera A-Z 2025 biggest stories. ChatGPT user adoption 40% → 61%; $375B 2025 AI spend → projected $3T/yr 2030. via Al Jazeera
Who shipped
Nobody major. Year ends with retrospective + prediction content. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI, DeepSeek, Alibaba all dark on launches.
Open-source pulse
Year closes with China at 7-of-10 HF top trending. GLM-4.7 + Qwen + DeepSeek + Kimi K2 + Hunyuan + ERNIE 5.0 as defining 2025 China open-weight wave.
Money, infra & hardware
2025 closes: NVDA +37.2% / NVIDIA $20B Groq deal largest ever / robotics funding tops $5B+ in single-year cluster / AI capital narrative crystallizes around labor displacement + agent automation + vendor consolidation.
Quiet corners
Mendel “2026 year of agents… automating work itself” frames consensus 2026 narrative — agents move from productivity multiplier to labor substitute. MIT 11.7% automatable figure becomes 2026 reference point.
By the numbers
- 11.7% — MIT estimate of jobs already automatable with AI
- $1B / $39B / $1B / $405M / ~$1.4B — Figure Series C / Figure post-money / UBTech credit / FieldAI total / Unitree Series C
- $186.50 / +37.2% / $20B — NVDA close / 2025 YoY / Groq deal
- 40% → 61% / $375B → $3T/yr — ChatGPT adoption growth / projected 2030 AI spend
- Most-mentioned topic: 2026 labor displacement + agents + vendor consolidation
- Quietest segment: everything except retrospectives
Compiled by AI Feed’s editor from verified web sources for 31 December 2025.